These are the words of a compliance specialist writing a Letter of Findings in response to a state complaint investigation.
They also are the words that no parent wants to see written by a compliance specialist.
These are the words of a compliance specialist writing a Letter of Findings in response to a state complaint investigation.
They also are the words that no parent wants to see written by a compliance specialist.
Here’s another curious comment that appears in the same document:
“This is my justification for the length of the narrative in this case—they made me do it!! ? I wanted to separate the three categories of requests that Parent had initiated las summer — IEP, ESY, Reevaluation, Reading inventory testing. Sheesh. It shows the confusing atmosphere that FFX handled professionally. She was making lots of FFX staff work, sometimes in conflict with others. Please edit and make it better, ML.”
The announcement came in a May 12, 2023, letter from Valerie Williams, director of OSEP, to Lisa Coons, VDOE’s new superintendent of public instruction and is a follow up to OSEP’s February 17, 2023, letter to Coon’s predecessor Jillian Balow, which announced OSEP would be conducting additional monitoring activities, to include an on-site investigation. According to the May 12 letter, the on-site will occur during the week of September 25, 2023.
United States Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs has noted VDOE’s problematic state complaints a few times, in differentiated monitoring support letters dated June 23, 2020, February 8, 2022, March 16, 2022, September 1, 2022, January 17, 2023, and February 17, 2023.
Yet, VDOE’s state complaint process remains as bizarre as ever, with VDOE’s investigation decisions reading as if VDOE didn’t so much a peek at the evidence—more Ace Ventura than Sherlock Holmes.
In this case, VDOE makes a statement of noncompliance, but then finds Fairfax County Public Schools in compliance for that exact action.
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The complaint alleges that specifically, since at least 2017, FCPS has engaged in the following: a) holding IEP meetings that are in noncompliance with IDEA and implementing state regulations; b) unauthorized practice without a license; c) unlicensed “diagnosis and treatment of human physical or mental ailments, conditions, diseases, pain, or infirmities”; d) procedural violation of Parent’s and Student’s opportunity to participate in the decision-making process regarding the provision of FAPE to Student.
In other words: FCPS is in noncompliance for refusing Parents rights’ to be deciding members of eligibility and IEP teams.
Data collected from a survey of administrators and staff at FCPS’s five day schools—Burke, Cedar Lane, Key Center, Kilmer School, Quander Road—indicates the schools are understaffed, under-resourced, and woefully unable to meet the academic, functional, and behavioral needs of their students. In addition, staff are struggling on a day-to-day basis with their workloads, while simultaneously being concerned about the safety of the students and of themselves.